Amanda Keller did not appear on her popular radio show today.
Gold FM announced this morning that the 63-year-old, who is one of the hardest working people in radio and rarely takes a day off, is off sick today.
During the show, her longtime co-host Brendan “Jonesey” Jones said Amanda was at home with a “runny tummy”.
“She’s at home, she’s tucked up in bed, we sent her around some flat lemonade and now she’s okay,” he said on air. “For the record, this is Amanda’s second sick day in 20 years, the only other time she had a day off was when she had a hip replacement.”
This news comes just days after the veteran radio host opened up to news.com.au about the “kick to the ego” she experienced when she was told her breakfast show, which she has been hosting with Jonesy since 2012, will be moved to the afternoon slot in 2026.
“First, it was a kick to the ego,” she told the publication. “We’d had our best ratings here ever last year, so it was a surprise.”
However, Amanda has since come around to the idea and thinks it will actually help her start to slow down a little bit.
“Almost straight away I thought, ‘oh phew, someone helping me stop,’” she said. “Life doing breakfast radio is hugely frenetic. It’s a flowing river, and it’s a voracious need to fill it with information, with stories, with everything.
“So mixed in with my, ‘well hang on a minute,’ was ‘oh phew,’ and that’s how I feel now is the ‘phew’,” she continued. “We still get to do what we love, which is radio, but the universe has said, ‘why don’t you have a calmer existence. And I needed someone else to make that decision for me.”
The radio duo announced the news to their listeners on air in early August.
“There are going to be some changes,” The Living Room host said at the time. “Brendan and I are going to go to the drive shift.”
Amanda and Jonesy will be replaced by Gold FM Melbourne star Christian O’Connell, who will now be syndicated to Sydney.
Off air, Amanda has been caring for her husband of 34 years, Harley Oliver, who has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
During an appearance on the ABC’s The Assembly earlier this year, Amanda opened up about Harley’s health journey when she was asked the question “Do you love your husband?”
“I think I’m going to cry, because my husband is going through some stuff at the moment. My husband has Parkinson’s disease, and we’ve been married 34 years, and life is changing around us,” she said while visibly tearing up.
“He’s so good with it, in a way that I’m not, actually. We’re learning to find ourselves in the midst of changing circumstances, and part of me thinks – it’s easy for me to say, he’s the one going through it – but part of me thinks it’s a real privilege to be with someone long enough that you go through these changes with them.
“So yes, I love him very much, even though we’ve got some stuff going on,” she concluded.
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Share this post